October 23, 2003

Open Media

Until 1997, Timothy “Speed” Levitch was a penniless New York City tour guide who paid homage to his Jewish ancestors’ traditions of wandering through the desert by spending his nights passed out on various couches throughout the city. After the release of The Cruise in 1998, a documentary featuring Levitch, and subsequent roles in such films as Richard Linklater’s Waking Life, Levitch is still a penniless New York City tour guide without a bed to call his own. However, he also happens to be a very noteworthy cult icon.

daze: In becoming a tour guide, did you purposely set out to use the job as a means of self-expression, or were you just trying to make ends meet?

Speed Levitch: I was at NYU studying playwriting and about to graduate. Someone told me I had to get a job. I didn’t know anything about that. The whole idea of labor just bugged me. My favorite hobby was appreciating beauty. I also liked to perform. So, when you put it all together, it made sense, it was like a perfect mix of characteristics for being a tour guide. After doing my first couple of tours, what really pushed me over the edge were the women. Beautiful women. Everyday. From every continent.

daze: So where in New York do you especially like to take the aforementioned beautiful women?

SL: Well, my tour is a never-ending one. Unlike a real-live tour which seems to have a definite beginning and a definite end, mine don’t. When I start a walking tour, my first word is usually “and” or “also” to imply the infinity of the tour. A tour is what we all do all the time. We are all tourists, touring each other, each of us landmarks on each other’s tour.

daze: Are you a life-long New Yorker?

SL: I don’t really consider myself a New Yorker. I don’t know what that term means. A term is what happens when language and laziness hang out and have a beer. But the term New Yorker is a particularly silly one to me. I think that New York has got the same tone as the bar scene in the original Star Wars. There are all kinds of aliens in that bar, and the only thing that unifies them is that they’re all trying to avoid the empire.

daze: You’ve been living a sort of nomadic lifestyle, crashing on your friends’ couches. Do you ever just want to come back to your own home?

SL: I think that rent is essentially a diabolical conspiracy. Sometimes I just sit back and imagine what would happen if all the amazing young people in the city didn’t have to pay rent, and could aim their energy at something other than cash flow for an anonymous landlord. But my couch surfing is not some sort of ideological statement, it’s a practical strategy because I am too impoverished to pay rent in New York City. That is because I am an artist, and artists are almost synonymous with persecution.

daze: So you were in Waking Life. Just for my own sake, how was working with Ethan Hawke?

SL: Ethan’s a comrade of mine; a cosmic playmate.

daze: You’ve been involved in all sorts of projects. How do you feel about the state of the mainstream media today?

SL: Well, a lot of it is a psychiatric outcry for attention. It’s an attempt to replace being, to replace intimacy. Most of the time, I don’t even think New York really exists. Only when people are having eye contact, breathing together, sharing, is human engagement occurring. If they were able to look into each other’s eyes for too long, they’d be uplifted into grandiose acts of love, and they would miss the evening news.

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So, this is supposed to be some special weekend at Cornell. It’s supposed to be the weekend when all those fabulous alums come back to Ithaca, go drinking and consequently get drunk together, and reminisce about their great times on the East Hill. Everything is supposed to be special — the band should play a little bit louder, the football team should play a little bit better, and heck, Jansen’s might even serve something tastier than cube steak. But you know what? Homecoming’s not special at all — at least it isn’t for Cornell. The student body doesn’t get into it, and only a few alums actually come home. University President Jeffrey S. Lehman ’77 officially came home last week with his inauguration, but even he won’t be here this weekend. I’m sure whatever he’s doing in Oregon is important business, but it does show you how much the University administration cares about this weekend. How many of you even knew that it’s Homecoming weekend before seeing the Homecoming football supplement? It’s just not that big of a deal. Some writers in The Sun have bemoaned the relative apathy surrounding Homecoming and have urged all Cornellians to go out and support the teams. But come on, we all know that’s not going to happen and all the begging in the world won’t get people out at Schoellkopf Field, Berman Field, or Oxley Equestrian Center. At the end of the day, the loyal fans who regularly attend the sporting events will still be the only ones out there. No more, no less. To be honest, I’m not bothered by this relative apathy at all. You see, I went to a relatively large high school in San Francisco, Calif. with a student body of over 2,500. I don’t think we ever got more than 200 fans at any of our school sporting events. I remember playing in the band at our Homecoming game during my freshman year. Our band of 70 was joined by about 20 fans. To me, the attendance of 3,000 (or so the Athletic Department claims — you make that up, right?) that go to the football games is a great turnout. Would it be great to have more fans? Sure. Will it happen? No. We can admire Michigan’s Big House and Duke’s Cameron Crazies all we want. But Cornellians, like those kids at my high school, just aren’t hard-wired for that sort of thing. This apathy can be traced all the way back to the day we filled out the Big Red Packet that Cornell sent to us during our senior years in high school. It can be traced to the fact that Cornell’s part of the Ivy League. When my friends decided to go to Cal-Berkeley, Stanford, and various other scholarship schools, they immediately starting thinking about getting season basketball and football tickets. When I sent in my forms, I didn’t even know Cornell had basketball and football teams. I’m sure many of you were the same way. I came here for an education, and I’ve gotten a damn good one, just like Cornell promised. So this weekend, forget the games. Football’s playing a horrible, bottom feeder in Brown, the hockey team’s going to beat up on some minors (isn’t that illegal?), and really, it’s just too cold to go out to Berman Field to watch soccer. Will I be at the games? Yeah, it’s my job and I get to sit in a nice, warm press box. But I won’t blame you if you don’t go. Ithaca’s just not pleasant this time of year. So, contrary to what we at the paper and some of those diehards out there want to have happen, Homecoming will be just another weekend. Well, not exactly. If you’re cheap and want some free food and beer, head up to Schoellkopf before the game and grab some grub. After all, those tailgaters made all that food expecting alums (they should know better by now). Make someone happy and eat it. Not watching football — forgivable. Not eating that free food — now that’s a crime.Archived article by Alex Ip

The Columbia Scholastic Press Association recently awarded the Cornell Political Forum, a nonpartisan student magazine, a Gold Medalist Certificate for its spring/summer 2003 issue. The forum has received several awards from the association in the past, including two Gold Crown Awards and two Silver Crown Awards. Additionally, in 1995 a member of the forum was awarded the first James A. Perkins Prize for Interracial Understanding and Harmony at Cornell. Founded in 1987 and recently revived from a yearlong hiatus, the Cornell Political Forum is a “journal of intellectual debate” devoted to providing a “respectable arena for informed discussion,” according to its statement of philosophy. Glossy Magazine With 36 full-sized pages, a glossy color cover and a printing of 2,500 copies, the latest issue is themed “On Parallels Between the Cold War and the Post-9/11 Era” and includes scholarly essays written by students and a campus quotes feature on “the greatest dangers to peace.” It also includes interviews with prominent experts such as Prof. Peter Katzenstein, government; former Attorney General Janet Reno ’60; TV commentator Pat Buchanan and Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union. The magazine is funded in part by the Student Assembly Finance Commission and the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. CPF editor-in-chief Daniel Braun ’04 said the forum has a “special niche on campus” and an “important purpose of promoting political discourse and diverse views. You can’t have a healthy democracy without a plurality of ideas and debates,” he said. Braun attributes the success of the magazine to a committed advisory board and a hardworking team of students. In presenting the topics of the magazine, he said it is “important to do it in an interesting way,” making sure to incorporate as many people as possible. He said the latest issue has had an “extremely happy response” and has been found as a “refreshing change” to other types of student publications. Though the forum tries to address and assess current events, Braun said, the purpose is to create something of more lasting value than the newspapers, something with a timeless element. For this reason, the forum features essays with what is, according to Braun, a “deeper thesis.” He hopes that the pieces in the magazine will still be relevant in the future. In the magazine, Braun writes of the “enormous unpredictability as [the world] tries to cope with a variety of unexpected dangers” and that “the solution though is not to blindly lash out at real or imagined threat.” He explains that the forum is “seeking to enhance and deepen our understanding of vital issues and processes by encouraging a vigorous, innovative, diverse and balanced examination of key concerns and developments.” The next issue, which is expected to be released by the end of the semester, will be themed “Science and Society in the 21st Century.” It will feature interviews with the president of Oxfam America, Raymond Offenheiser; Soli Sorabjee, the attorney general of India; Nobel laureate Prof. Roald Hoffmann, chemistry and N.R. Narayana Murthy, chair of Infosys Technologies Ltd. In addition to the magazine, the CPF is also responsible for hosting public events on campus “to reach all facets” of Cornell’s community, Braun said. Yesterday, the forum hosted a debate on U.S. foreign policy between Katzenstein and Prof. Barry Strauss ’74, history. Last year, the forum brought Buchanan and Strossen to debate on civil liberties in a post-9/11 America. They also hosted speak-out sessions last year on Ho Plaza, allowing students to express their opinions on the war in Iraq. Archived article by Phillip Kim